A.N.: This is an overhaul of what I'd written already of Machiavelli's Daughter because I went back to it after months and didn't like how I'd started the story back up after Dangerous Beauty, so I thought I'd scrap the earlier chapters and go again.
This chapter is dedicated to Savanna95 whose chapter-by-chapter reviews of Drunken Binges and Dangerous Beauty have made a horrendous week at work bearable!
I'm all caught up with The Originals and I have to say…the best part of that entire season was Yusuf's portrayal of Vincent, and Elijah's freedom. Much as I hate what they did with Elijah's characterisation in the latter seasons The Originals, I love that he finally rid himself of 'Always and forever'. I'm underwhelmed by the storyline, by the lack of any real focus on Hope as a shy little girl with no friends, not just a symbol of the family's redemption, disgusted by Hayley's attitude about and toward Elijah for the whole 'red door' thing - as if she's not done worse, she set up twelve innocent hybrids to be slaughtered by Klaus so she could get intel on her parents! AAAARGH! The best parts of this season were Vincent, Josh, Keelin's refreshing attitude, and Elijah playing that piano in the final scene. Although, is this adieu to his lovely suits? Will he be going…shirtless?
If anyone wants to chat about Season 4 - in considerable detail - please PM me!
As always happens with my stories, I like to 'correct' what I don't like! And one of the biggest things is that Klaus is a textbook Dark Tetrad personality: Sadistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic and narcissistic. And worse, the writers/characters excuse his behaviour away saying that, a thousand years ago, Mikael smacked him around and belittled him. Tyler's own dad hit and bullied him; Stefan and Damon's dad literally shot them in the back in cold blood. So, not buying that as an excuse for Klaus' behaviour toward anyone, let alone his siblings, especially as Klaus then murdered his own mother and lied about it to everyone, and I will be addressing that in this story, because the writers completely overlooked that enormous bombshell that should've fundamentally altered the family dynamics.
Machiavelli's Daughter
01
Alive
"I'm... Oh, what is that word? It's so big, so complicated. It's so sad… I've found it now… Alive. I'm alive!" - Idris, Doctor Who
The small ceramic ornament shattered, exploding with the force of a small grenade, dust flying. As her heart stuttered in her throat, there was a yell in the other room, and the tinkling of the piano stopped abruptly with a cacophony of notes out of harmony, her grey-faced little white Siamese cat Simba hissing as a chorus of deep barks resonated through the house. She shot to her feet, startled from her desk, her pale eyes staring with unparalleled intensity at the space on her low mid-century sideboard cabinet where the trinket had rested since she had reclaimed it from Sheila nearly four years ago, after returning to Mystic Falls with a tiny little dumpling, for the first time in her life truly believing she was out of her depth.
Striding around her desk, she carefully picked her way to the mess, tiny feet pattering through the house toward her. Perfect ringlets framed a tiny tanned face, molasses and gold spun and coiled together, glossy and mussed from sleep and bouncing to her jaw, long fine black eyelashes fluttered over exquisite dark eyes, her eyebrows drawn in the same intense expression she had learned from her mother. The dogs, crowding tiny Zita like familiars on guard-duty, sniffed the air and growled, barking, before backing away out of the room: they could sense the magic, unnerved by it.
"Stay where you are, little girl," Giulia said gently, and Zita froze, toeing the threshold, rubbing the back of her ankle with her tiny foot, green pen on her knee and a glittery sticker under her chin.
"Mamma, the monster's broken!" Zita gasped, her sharp dark eyes on the empty space on the sideboard-cabinet. She knew Mamma kept some of her most interesting secrets there, alongside a record-player, the cut-crystal dish of rhubarb-and-custard boiled sweets Sasha sent her from England and the tall vase from Caroline, this week filled with vibrant orange chrysanthemums and Bells of Ireland; the cabinet contained a display of curious things Giulia had picked up on her travels with Caroline before Zita was even born, old photographs of people neither of them had ever met, a constant motivation for her. Inside the cabinets, Giulia's adolescent diaries were a constant source of entertainment. Zita spent hours trying to figure out the handmade wooden puzzles arranged and kept dust-free on the top.
"Sit here for a minute while I tidy up," Giulia said, lifting her daughter onto the leather daybed opposite her desk, smiling to herself despite the stutter of her heart at the totem's destruction, at the sight of another glittery pineapple sticker stuck to one of Zita's beautiful curls. She peeled it off, sticking the pineapple to Zita's little dress, and found a dustpan and brush from the kitchen, tidying up the mess. Two tiny feet, ten glittery lime-green toenails, one colourful evil-eye anklet appeared in front of her, and Giulia glanced up, about to tell Zita off; her expression thoughtful, her little girl handed her a large piece of the broken ornament, the disfigured head of the 'monster'. Giulia took it, staring at the broken piece, the memories it evoked, and what it meant that the ornament had shattered.
"Why's the monster broken?" Zita asked curiously. She still had the tiniest, most adorable lisp on her S's and X's. "Did you drop it?"
"It was magic," Giulia smiled warmly, and Zita smiled.
"Really?"
"Mm-hmm. It lets me know when there's a real monster close," Giulia said, and Zita peered closer at the broken pieces, the dust. Zita gave her a sceptical look, and Giulia chuckled. "Why don't you go back to the piano? You sounded so beautiful."
"When are we going camping?"
"Soon. I've got a little bit of work to do," Giulia sighed, glancing back at her desk, the phone resting there. She had some calls to make. "Then we can go get Caroline. And we're going to go see your friends."
"Really?" Zita beamed excitedly. "Oh, boy!" Zita grinned and dashed off, the dogs scampering about her feet. Giulia listened, perplexed and amused, as Zita ran around gathering things upstairs. Moments later, the piano started tinkling away. Giulia stood, listening to the music her extraordinarily-gifted daughter brought to life at the tips of her teeny tiny fingertips, unable to even reach the pedals but composing as she played, joyous and excited. Zita had never sat at the piano and banged on the keys; she used to sit in Giulia's lap, her face scrunched in a determined focus, listening, watching Giulia's fingers fly over the keys. She had learned to play by ear, from the moment she was born had been soothed and now found rapture in music. Like her mother's habit of burying herself in projects to avoid having to confront her emotions until prepared for the backlash, Zita took to the piano whenever she was overwhelmed, either with joy or with annoyance - very rarely with sadness. Giulia always knew where Zita was emotionally by the piano; if it was ever silent, she knew to coax Zita out of her shell with a pineapple dessert, hedgehog stickers, or an afternoon with Grandma Liz.
Giulia groaned, rolling her neck, and eyed the remnants of Sheila Bennett's early-alarm totem, pondering her way forward. It had been an inevitability she had planned for - meticulously - but…why did it have to be this weekend? Fashioned from clay mixed with the blood of Klaus Mikaelson, the little ornament had been spelled by Sheila Bennett to break when Klaus crossed Virginia state lines. For over a decade they hadn't heard a peep from Klaus Mikaelson, and everyone would have liked it that way, were it not for Stefan's indentured servitude to the sadistic Machiavellian vampire-king.
Grabbing her phone, she first sent a text to Caroline, asking her to pick up her order at the bakery. And then she sent out a group text with one single word: It was her code, a dual warning and signal, to let the appropriate people arm up, reinforce security, bide their time, or surge forward with their tasks. Everyone had their responsibilities. Klaus would have no idea she was anticipating his arrival: but she had been planning for it since he left with Stefan the weekend after the sacrifice ritual that had altered everything. She dialled her phone, could tell she was being answered from inside a moving vehicle. She could practically smell the expensive leather.
"Good thing I had Sheila spell me an early-warning system," Giulia said lightly.
"Good thing you're in the States to do something about it," Katherine replied. "They're on their way to Mystic Falls, my guess is they'll get there tomorrow afternoon-ish. Klaus can't travel too far in a confined space without having an epic mantrum."
"And the sister?"
"She's still with them. Klaus wants answers; and he's pissed Rebekah lost her pendant. Well - he's pissed in general; but he is still no closer to gaining control and he's…he's woken Rebekah as an insurance-policy."
"He thinks a forgotten rebound from a century past will keep Stefan by his side as his guard-dog and protector?"
"The great Klaus Mikaelson isn't what he once was - just as you predicted," Katherine said, and Giulia could hear the smug smile in her rich, purring voice. "The sister's…entertained by his new lack of control. She's sharper than she looks, Rebekah; I'd watch out for her. She's already figured out he can't compel, can't control his shift, can't keep blood down. She learned his blood cures werewolf-bites, and that he's not toxic himself."
"Another failed hunt?"
"I don't know how you did it, but the werewolves have gone underground; he's finding it harder and harder to track any down," Katherine sighed. "So keep an eye on your Lockwolves. Especially Mason…those arms…" Giulia scoffed, amused. For someone who hated loose ends, Katherine was strangely sentimental about her past lovers. When Giulia had told her about Mason's surprise wedding to Hayley the summer after the sacrifice - he'd gotten her pregnant, no doubt her plan all along - Katherine had simply sighed, Decent people…
"How's Stefan doing?" Giulia asked quietly. Beyond Words with Friends and messages from Rose telling her that another diary had been mailed to the Boarding House for safe-keeping, she hadn't had much contact from her volatile Salvatore great-uncle. A "decade-long bender" in exchange for a pint of Klaus' blood to heal Damon from a werewolf-bite; Stefan had left Mystic Falls without looking back, leaving them to rebuild their lives without him. An uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous process for several of them.
"A witch from the old Prohibition days, Gloria, scrubbed Klaus' compulsion from his mind; he remembers his Ripper days with the Originals, back in the Twenties." Giulia let out a breath, remembering the 1922 diary she had tucked into his duffel-bag the night he had left Mystic Falls. He could see the entire picture now.
"He remembers loving Rebekah."
"He'll get over it. He's…different. He's definitely not the Ripper of Monterrey anymore, more like a functioning alcoholic; he's had to learn how to keep it together, to rein it in, so he can cover Klaus' tracks. Any number of Klaus' enemies would rip through him like warm butter if they learned how vulnerable Klaus really is. He's been using Stefan to make sure that doesn't happen… What do you want me to do?"
"Continue as normal," Giulia advised. "Stay in touch. Keep safe, Katherine. And - remember the precautions."
"Hard to forget," Katherine said with a bite, and Giulia smirked as she hung up. She bit her lip, wincing, troubled that Klaus and Stefan were so close; the sound of the piano brought her out of her thoughts, focused. All of this had been anticipated; she had planned meticulously for what would happen next. The dread unfurling in the pit of her stomach like a poisonous vine was for Zita. Giulia knew what she had set in motion, still believed in why she had done so, but…she had Zita to look after. Giulia had herself to look after, for Zita: She wasn't going to have the same childhood Giulia had.
"You ready, little girl?" Giulia called, and started putting the dogs on their leashes. "Gallant! C'mon, behave! Where's Tisiphone? I know you're excited, Zeus. Zita, would you please come help me corral your fur-siblings?"
"Zeus, come here!" Zita cooed, lisping adorably, as she set her expression to one of determination and their pale-eyed dark-silver Weimeraner sat obediently, sniffing at her curls and giving her little ear a lick that made her shiver and duck away, twitching as she used her dress to wipe her ear. "Is Simba coming with us?"
"No, Simba has to stay at home," Giulia said, glancing around to make sure her beautiful, aloof Siamese didn't try to make a break outside in the anarchy of leashing a Weimeraner, a long-haired dappled miniature dachshund and her black-and-tan smooth-haired baby-brother while a happy four-year-old skipped about, buzzing excitedly, and Giulia's phone pinged with texts and emails, responses confirming things were in motion.
"Who's going to make his dinner?" Zita asked. "And what about Hector? She'll think we've 'bandoned her if she wakes up and we're gone." Giulia smiled to herself.
"Don't you worry, I'll be coming back to feed Simba and Hector," she said, shaking her head. She eyed Zita, her tiny tongue sticking out, in danger of being licked to death by the dogs, as she focused on trying to do up the buckles on her sandals. Giulia squatted to try and help, getting a warm wet nose in the neck and her toes licked for her trouble.
"I can do it!" Zita protested, tongue still sticking out in concentration.
"Alright," Giulia smiled, holding up her hands. She did a quick check and made sure they had everything. She had already driven her beloved Beetle and the teardrop-trailer over to the Boarding House meadow and set up their pitch for the weekend, knew Rose was hard at work ensuring everything was running smoothly. This year marked the fourth annual vintage festival hosted at the Boarding House; capable Rose had some things down to an art. "Hold on, before we go outside." She sprayed Zita with sunscreen, letting her rub it in on her legs, smiling at the face she pulled as Giulia sprayed sunscreen on her hands and delicately rubbed it all over her face, over her ears - Giulia always forgot her own ears! She chuckled richly, holding Zita's little cheeks, and surprised a laugh out of her little girl by leaning in to blow a raspberry against her perfect little lips. Zita scrunched up her face, her eyes twinkling as she laughed; Giulia tucked a wide-brimmed hat on her head, a little black one Zita had picked out on a shopping-trip with Caroline, because it matched the ones Giulia owned.
"Have you got your backpack?" Giulia asked, and Zita shifted, pursing her lips guiltily. "What's up, sweet-pea?"
"It's heavy," Zita admitted. She glanced up at Giulia looking contrite. "Please could you carry it for me?"
"Will you show me what's inside it?" Giulia asked. "You remember what happened to the peach that went mouldy."
"Yes," Zita sighed, her cheeks flushing delicately with colour. Zita unzipped her backpack, and Giulia peered inside. Inside it were a four-year-old's essentials, and it was clear she had learned from her mother. Her dark-chocolate cherry lip-balm from her Christmas stocking that she treated much like Giulia did her favourite red lipstick; a jigsaw in the shape of a butterfly; a coin-purse, with the quarters Liz gave her, collected over weeks to buy stickers; and her diary. She saw Giulia writing in hers all the time, jotting down notes, sticking in photographs, sticky-notes, colour-swatches, everything, and children learned by example. Zita kept her own little diary, full of obscure colouring, stickers and unusually poignant things, like movie ticket-stubs, wrappers from candy someone at day-care had shared with her, bright feathers from the now-departed lovebirds Grace and Giorgio, pressed flowers and leaves she had found on walks with Giulia and Caroline and Liz and the Saltzmans in the woods, postcards, copies of photographs she asked Giulia to print, taken on her phone. There was the ancient digital-camera Caroline had once documented their epic transcontinental road-trip with, and passed on to Zita, battered and much-loved with a few amazing stories to tell; a deck of Uno cards, a bottle of Essie nail-polish in 'Bordeaux' Giulia had been missing for weeks, and the black-and-purple Maleficent-inspired Monstroctopus, a gift from Cara when Giulia had brought the newest generation of Salvatores home, and which Zita didn't sleep without. There was also a copy of The BFG, which Giulia had been reading to her. Four years old and startlingly gifted with music as she was, Zita couldn't read her letters; Giulia had taught her how to read sheet-music, but she liked being read to. And Giulia liked cuddling while she read to her little girl. It was one of her favourite parts of their day.
"Um - why did you pack a DVD?" Giulia asked, glancing from Zita to the copy of Wonder Woman with an arched eyebrow.
"For Lagertha!" Zita beamed. "I promised she could borrow it. Finn says she was a worrier too."
"A warrior," Giulia corrected, chuckling. "Alright. You can give her the DVD. She may want to watch the movie with you, though."
"I couldn't find Ferdinand for Finn," Zita said, frowning thoughtfully.
"You don't have to give away your things, you know," Giulia said, smiling warmly at her generous-hearted little girl. "Especially as they're actually mine. I'm assuming the nail-polish is for Gyda."
"Mm-hmm. Where's Ferdinand?" Zita pressed.
"I already put it in the teardrop," Giulia said. "Maybe Ruth can read it to you and Penelope."
"Yes!" Zita grinned, tripping over Gallant, who yelped as Zita sprawled on her bottom. Giulia had to stifle her laugh at the startled expression on Zita's face, wondering how she had gotten there.
There was no such thing as 'travelling light' with a four-year-old, or leaving the house on time, no matter how much effort Giulia put into being prompt. She had learned not to stress about it; most of her friends now had children of their own, and had come to understand. So, after wrangling the dogs, buckling Zita's sandals and shouldering her little backpack, Giulia set off from the house with the little chaotic army of her own making, Zita holding her hand and skipping beside her, chattering happily. Caroline met them at the end of the private road in her Jeep, a pink bakery box on the passenger-seat, hidden from Zita's view as Caroline kissed her goddaughter and buckled her in to her booster-seat, and Giulia settled the dogs in the back.
"Hi, little girl!" Caroline beamed at Zita. "Are you ready for an adventure?"
"Yes! I'm ready to dance. Mamma says there's dancing."
"Are you gonna teach me?"
"If you'd like. Is Kol gonna be there?"
"I heard a rumour he is," Caroline smiled. "I like your sticker. Who'd you like to listen to today?"
"Mm. May we have Hole?"
"You got it," Caroline smiled, rolling her eyes at Giulia as she climbed into her seat. Caroline blamed Giulia entirely for Zita's eclectic musical tastes; there was no Taylor Swift for the littlest Miss Salvatore, no encouraging her to gain success by exploiting others. It was Sharon Stone, Mendelssohn, The Kinks, Eddie South or Bach, anything rock or punk, P!nk or Led Zeppelin; Ariana Grande was acceptable after her OneLove concert in response to a terrorist-attack - that career and character-defining event was in keeping with the role-models Giulia wanted her little girl to grow up emulating: the striving elegance, intelligence and class of Emma Watson; the ferocity of P!nk's feminism; the pure naïveté and strength of character of Wonder Woman; the exquisite lyricism of Sharon Stone; the poetry of Patti Smith and the integrity of Ayn Rand, Angela Davis, Octavia Spencer; the humility and humanity of J.K. Rowling; the earthy realism of Roseanne, challenging poignant topics others would shy away from with humour and dignity.
"How was your morning?" Caroline asked, as Giulia settled herself in the passenger-seat with the bakery box, inhaling the scent of freshly-baked goodness within, and resisting the urge to eat everything inside.
"Miss Zita was composing again," Giulia smiled softly. "And we got the duplex and the two-bedroom with the basement on Primrose." Caroline beamed, clapping her hands excitedly.
"And I've got all the permits for Butterfield Lane, so we can schedule demo-day," Caroline said. Giulia chortled. She loved demo-days. "I knew that'd make you happy. And we've had two offers on Number Seven which is really encouraging."
The site of the farmhouse Giulia had burned to the ground ten years ago, after the owner and sole resident had been killed by the nest of vampires feeding off her, torturing Stefan for information on Katherine, had reverted back to the town; Giulia and Caroline had bought it, the land backing onto the woods Giulia owned, and had developed it into four apartments and eleven two-bedroom houses with sizeable backyards and a playground, two parking spaces each and a small convenience store that saw a lot of traffic from people stopping by on their way home from work in Richmond. They were homes for first-time buyers, young couples and small families who had previously struggled to get onto the property-ladder.
The rest of Ms Gibbons' land had been turned into the Edible Schoolyard, a working farm, a project that was the brainchild of Giulia, Caroline and the Unified School District, wanting to teach kids about natural ecosystems, agriculture, nutrition and life-skills like budgeting and cooking, teaching kids who'd never seen a live pig what went into their meals. After buying and remodelling neglected homes all over Mystic Falls, these new projects had been a little more ambitious, some were ongoing, culminating in the jewel of their burgeoning careers, the mall. They had given the town a much-needed facelift and a push into the twenty-first-century, at the same time keeping giant developers away from their town limits. Their projects were Giulia's passion and Caroline's baby.
"That is good," Giulia smiled, happy. "That just leaves Number 11 and they're all sold."
"I know. It'll be nice to see people settling in there, you know?" Caroline smiled.
"How's Finn doing with the garden maintenance?"
"I mean, it seems like nothing tires him out!" Caroline laughed. "Mysterious handsome guy appears out of nowhere, and all he wants to do is dig and tend the goats and pull weeds. Sets the bar pretty high, just does not stop working! Rose says he's amazing at the Boarding House - I was at the Edible Schoolyard when some of the little kids were there for a workshop, he was so incredibly sweet and patient with them."
"And his English?"
"I mean, it's getting better. You can tell when you're talking to him, he really listens, and he thinks about how he wants to answer," Caroline sighed softly. "Not like me, Foot-in-Mouth Forbes. Rose and I are totally crushing on him." Giulia chuckled.
"I'll be sure to let him know that. He gives great squirm," she smiled softly to herself.
"Oh, these are all your messages from this morning," Caroline said, taking a wad of Post-Its from the centre console and handing them to Giulia. "The pipes were laid and they put the floor down in the farmhouse on Gilbert Drive, the guys are gonna go in with the dry-wall, and the mudders are on standby! They finished the job on Juniper really well, I'm really happy with the team we put together, those kids really take a lot of pride in the job they do. So much better than the guys we used on Sixth."
"I know," Giulia nodded; she agreed. "Have there been any more murmurings about the meeting on Thursday? Take a left here…"
"Some," Caroline said, nodding, indicating to turn, giving her a strange look; Giulia was directing her away from the Boarding House, where they should be headed. "I think the turnout was amazing; and I think people went away really thinking about the points we made. You know, we have to be proactive, this is how we protect the town we love, ensuring more organic growth, bringing more money in… I think the mall going up really has helped people see things can be done, and done beautifully, to actually enhance the town… After all the resistance the town got, the abuse we got, I mean – it's amazing how people's opinions can change when there's money involved! And it has brought in the economy we needed. Everything was starting to get so stagnant; there's actually stuff to draw people to the town, and young people can actually afford to live here."
Giulia smiled to herself; these were all the arguments she had used to convince Caroline, four years ago, to help her put the idea forward to the town to build their first ever mall. Finished just over a year ago, it was a beautiful modern-traditional redbrick and blackened steel jewel full of polished floors and a lot of natural light, filled with independent boutiques, high-end department stores, niche cafés and unusual restaurants, a cooking school, mini day-spa, tutoring lounge and science centre, art gallery and dance-studio, to name a few of the attractions; as yet they'd had not one single empty store. And everything was accessible through the town centre, drawing people in to Mystic Falls: they came for the mall and stayed for the cosy small town vibe, rejuvenated by the economy boosted by all those jobs created within the mall.
"Any word on the land by the bus depot?" Giulia asked.
"I think the biggest challenge will be repurposing the old depot," Caroline sighed. "If we're moving the depot out of the centre of town so we can do that Park-and-Ride thing so Main Street doesn't get congested with traffic to get to the mall, what happens to the old depot?"
"It's a historical building," Giulia said, "so it's protected, but there's actually very few limitations on what it could be renovated into. Considering it's such an agricultural area, it's making me think of farmer's markets. Like Borough Market in London. You know?"
"Ooh. Yeah. Yum!" Caroline beamed.
"And the location is brilliant, too," Giulia mused.
"By the way, you know the Town Council's already impressed with your designs for the new depot, with the little convenience store, and a few of them are really taken with the idea of the little bed-and-breakfast owned and operated by the town as a money-earner," Caroline said. "It's a shame we're a stop-along-the-way and not a destination…"
"We'd lose all our humble small-town charm," Giulia smiled. "All our history…" She trailed off, looking through the windshield as Caroline put the Jeep in park. Ten years ago, it had been a spooky part of Mystic Falls history left to rot. The decaying house located where a hundred witches had been massacred centuries before now no longer looked like a haunted mansion, the beautiful antebellum house now a crisp white, with sage-green shutters, pretty clematis and honeysuckle and a redbrick circular footpath in front of the house, the flowerbeds overflowing with herbs and plants and delicate flowers and succulents in pretty greens and purples, flecked with white, a stone birdbath water-feature bubbling delicately in the circular bed in the middle.
"It is so pretty, though," Caroline sighed despondently. It was one of their earliest projects, after Giulia and Sheila Bennett had lobbied the town for historical status; because of the witch-spirits, they'd had a string of nasty accidents, until Sheila had put a stop to it. Now, the spirits were focused, kept busy; and Giulia had been working on something with Sheila that would keep them placated.
"I think we really need to rethink how we handle marketing this place," Caroline sighed gloomily, peering through the windshield. "It's obvious interest has dried up, I just don't know where we go from here."
"Don't worry about the house," Giulia said lightly. "I've been talking to Sheila about it. Something that can appease the witches and put some coin in our pockets to cover the cost of the renovation."
"Oh?" Caroline blinked.
"I've been talking to Sheila about her legacy. You know, she's retired from full-time teaching and spends a lot of time with Penelope, but she's still itchy," Giulia said. "I went to U.V. and suggested they fund Sheila's efforts to create a permanent exhibit specialising in the history of witches and the occult in the area, specifically Mystic Falls."
"A museum?"
"We'd rent the property to the university, long-term," Giulia said. "And they'd get a permanent exhibit and a curated reference library. It would be Sheila's legacy for Penelope and the Unborn… But for now, I've found a purpose for the house in the short-term."
"What's that?"
"In a minute. What're these?" Giulia asked, picking up the manila folders Caroline had wedged in the door. Caroline gave her a sunny smile.
"There are two properties right next to each other, the owners both went into homes recently. One has an insanely huge basement; the other has a really beautiful yard they obviously put so much love into, so if we buy it I think we really have to be careful to respect it. I really want them."
"My God, you're expensive," Giulia sighed, flicking through the photographs and property details. Caroline chuckled.
"One still has all the original fittings; the other one has a lot of damage from damp but I'll get you in to have a look and see what you can do with them, because they're kinda clean slates once we've ripped everything out and repaired what needs attention. And then, there's this. Colonial farmhouse on three acres, it's been abandoned for years, the title-holder of the deed finally died so it's reverted back to the county."
"That could be very pretty," Giulia said thoughtfully, taking the photograph. Two-storeys, non-symmetrical, with a redbrick two-storey porch to the left and a bay-room to the right.
"Inside there's like this built-in banquette - like, you know in Atonement, the kind of internal architecture in that? And then, this one. It's actually a few properties along from our renovation on Briar Road, it's way back from the road behind tons of trees; access isn't challenging, but if you didn't know you were looking for something, you'd never find it," Caroline said. Giulia frowned at the photograph. A decayed three-storeyed Victorian with a cupola made almost entirely of windows. The potential for that little room alone drew Giulia in, as much as the usable attic space beneath. Caroline loved timeless Practical Magic-esque Victorians they could breathe new life into. Alongside their small first-time-buyer properties, she and Caroline also invested in renovating larger, far grander properties – old colonial mansions, grand Victorians, farmhouses, barns and, more difficult and far more fulfilling to Giulia, protected historical buildings. They were trusted to do their research and really breathe new life into neglected old properties that had once had great significance to the town.
"Alright. Let me take a look during the week, I'll run some numbers, see the maximum you can bid," Giulia sighed, and Caroline beamed.
"So, why are we here, exactly?" she asked, as Giulia climbed out of the Jeep.
"I mentioned I'd found a temporary use for the house," Giulia began, unbuckling a straining Zita, who recognised the house and was fidgeting to be free from her booster-seat, grinning, as Caroline let the dogs out, warning them sternly not to dig up the succulents. They knew the house, too. Zita loved the pretty backyard with the swing in the old plum-tree, and the creek where she'd often caught fish.
Caroline didn't know the secret, but Zita did: Caroline thought Zita had imaginary friends.
Giulia took out her key, letting them into the house, Zita bouncing in her excitement. As soon as they were inside, Zita raced through the foyer, the sunshine glinting off the parquet floor trimmed with mosaic-inlays, the breeze stirring the delicate white sheers over the windows in the formal dining-room, and the huge glass vase of white peonies and lilac resting on the large round table in the centre of the foyer; Finn had cut the flowers from the Boarding House gardens, one of the perks of his job.
"I mean, Scarlett O'Hara would be impressed!" Caroline blurted indignantly, still upset after all the work they had put into the house. It had been their first project, and to date their only unsold property.
"She probably would. Gorgeous staircase for her to trip down," Giulia said, and Caroline shot her a look. "I don't know, I think as a private residence it would lose some of its significance to our town-history. Turning it into a museum and dedicated research centre honours all the people who were killed here. Ensures they're not overlooked because it's uncomfortable for people to remember."
"Is she talking to the witch-spirits?" Caroline asked, perplexed, as Zita danced around the airy rooms, cooing in Italian, coaxing someone to come out and let her kiss them.
"Nope. Her imaginary friends," Giulia chuckled richly, raising her eyes to the mezzanine gallery, where a slash of dark appeared amid the creamy magnolia. Chestnut hair shorn close into a gorgeous fade at the sides, a little longer on top, pretty eyes, thin lips and a rich tan, insane shoulders highlighted by a slim-fitting charcoal Henley shirt, a smile softening the severity of his features, although his eyes lingered apprehensively on Caroline. Silently, he appeared downstairs, behind Zita, playfully pinching her nose, disappearing when she whirled, then grabbing her from behind so she shrieked a delicious giggle as he lifted her into his arms. Giulia smiled and watched as he cuddled her in his arms, responding quietly as Zita jabbered away in rapid – and unbeknownst to her, medieval – Italian, grabbing his cheeks with her tiny, dimpled little hands to pepper his lips with kisses. Zita cradled against his hip, he approached them, eyeing a bemused Caroline warily.
He greeted Giulia with a half-hug around her waist, kissing both cheeks slowly, his expression solemn, closed off…questioning. When he spoke, it was in the same medieval Italian Zita had no idea she spoke to him, the same language Finn had been speaking when he had a silver dagger thrust through his heart nine centuries ago: "What has happened?"
Apart from compelled stylists, Giulia had never brought anyone but Zita to the house, and certainly without giving notice. The fact that she had brought Caroline, who was known to Finn if only from afar, was an immediate indicator to quiet, shrewd Finn that something had changed. Giulia smiled gently, glancing past Finn, distracted by an excited, entranced Zita jabbering away in his ear, at the second dark slash in the doorway, this one petite and utterly feminine.
"Caroline…you've met Finn," Giulia said gently, glancing at her best-friend.
Over the last ten years, they had been creating Mystic Falls as a sort of safe-haven. It would always be Stefan and Damon's home, had been for 180 years; it would also be Caroline's home, too. Her first home, the place where she had lived. Where she had grown up. It was part of her first life, her only human life. That would always make this town special, worth protecting. And it was now home to Rose, too. And it was home to Mason, and Hayley, and their son Spencer. To Giulia, again, after her sojourns to New York City and various European cities. It was Zita's home.
In ten years, they had had no vampire-attacks. No werewolf-encroachment on their territory. No campers had been found mauled to death in the woods. Giulia had made sure of it.
Over the last decade, the ideology of Mystic Falls' secret Council had evolved to reflect the new enlightened generation's ideas. Caroline, Rose, Damon, Giulia herself, would always be welcome in town for as long as they helped protect it – from others. Not just from developers, but from the monsters that truly went bump in the night… The ones like Klaus.
Giulia knew, even if the others had become complacent and forgotten, that they were living in a sort of détente, a period of grace – between one bad thing happening, waiting for another to brew up. Giulia called it regression to the mean; things had to find their way back. Nothing could ever be wholly calm or wholly chaotic, not for long. Wars wound down, fashions evolved, every decade was a reaction – a counteraction – to the one before it. Full to the brim with adventures and chaos and delicious memories and heartbreak as the last ten years had been…they were due some upheaval. Some supernatural interference.
Klaus had demanded a decade of Stefan's life in payment for saving Damon's. A pint of Klaus' blood, for Stefan's freedom. The little blood-bound clay totem shattering this morning had literally announced Klaus' return with a bang. Giulia had always been proactive. Rather than wait for things to happen, she went out and seized life by the balls.
Months ago, Giulia had pulled the silver-dagger out of Finn's chest, secreted the dagger away, and started helping the medieval vampire acclimate to modern life.
After Elijah, the next-born in a sprawling family was Finn. A twin - the death of Finn's twin-sister Freyja had set their parents on a path that had led ultimately to the creation of vampires. The Original family. From them, every vampire in existence had been created. Brothers and sisters – Kol, a cousin, the son of their mother's sister, taken as an infant due to his mother's mental instability. And a daughter. The only child of Elijah's out of seven to survive.
There was only one way to kill an Original vampire – and then, only temporarily. A mystical dagger, forged of silver and magic, when coated with the ash of an ancient white oak Elijah and Finn's mother had used in the spell that created her children as vampires – embedded in their hearts, rendered Original vampires…for all intents and purposes, dead.
Kol had escaped that fate. Because Giulia had stolen and hidden away the two spare silver-daggers Klaus had been careless enough to hand out ten years ago, superbly arrogant in his belief he was untouchable, trying to get Elijah out of his way to complete the sacrifice ritual to release his true nature. But Finn… He had spent a millennium inside a coffin, a silver dagger embedded in his breastbone. Now, Finn's hazel eyes skimmed from Giulia and Caroline and back.
"Um…we've met," Caroline said gently, with a hesitant smile. She frowned slightly at Giulia. "You're…a gardener at the Boarding House?"
In his human life, Finn had shared the labouring of a farm with his older-brother Elijah. Everything they grew sustained their family, and a thousand years ago a failed crop meant a slow, agonising death. In trying to help him acclimate to this new time, Giulia had given Finn a job she knew was ingrained in his personality – a thousand years ago or now, farming essentially had not changed. The methods and machinery had, but the backbreaking hard-work and dutiful care of the crops was the same. Working at the Boarding House put Finn in limited contact with people from whom he could learn more about the English language, the culture, how people dressed and held themselves; he had to puzzle out why no-one carried weapons – guns baffled him – and his job gave him something to do.
Eternity without purpose was dull.
"I am," Finn said quietly. He glanced at Giulia. "Giulia believes it will help."
"Your English is already lots better than when Giulia woke me," Gyda spoke up, resting a hand on Finn's arm as she played with one of Zita's curls, her warm smile encouraging, and it was quite startling to hear her speak; the look in her eyes was mature, almost sombre. It was full of warmth, maturity; wisdom, born of experience. When she spoke, her voice was paradoxically light, young; she looked barely sixteen. Her accent was also a crystal-clear English: she had spent the 1970s in London, before migrating to New York City to party with Willem and Giulia's missing uncle, Joshua Salvatore.
The petite girl with incredibly fine black lashes and pretty lips, and a contradictory aura of fragility, humanity and unflappable courage slipped forward, a smile flirting at her lips as she snuck up and tickled Zita, who wriggled and shrieked with giggles in Finn's arms; he was always so careful with her, cautious of his immense strength around something so utterly delicate. Zita giggled richly, beaming, and leaned down with her lips puckered for a kiss from her friend. Gyda wore a customised Star Wars vest tee, braless, a colourful printed mini-skirt and purple suede ankle-booties, delicate bracelets and bangles glittering on her slender forearms, unusual stud-earrings glinting at her earlobes, her cheeks flushed delicately, eating a passion-fruit with a teaspoon. She was obsessed with fresh fruit. Gyda delicately cupped Zita's face in her slender hand, her fingernails filed, buffed and polished a beautiful glossy navy, pressing a tender kiss to Zita's lips, her smile so warm and genuinely affectionate. Gyda then turned to Caroline, her eyes twinkling.
Since Giulia had woken her, Gyda had been researching the modern world, including its fashions, and she was cultivating an aesthetic of a polished, immaculate rebel, with a focus on the details, nodding to various aspects of her personal history, conscious of the socio-political climate she now found herself reintegrating into, consuming magazines and any newspaper she could get her hands on, exploring the Internet. She was incredibly pretty, and it was a natural prettiness that transcended changing beauty fads throughout the ages; she had a delicate constellation of freckles across her little nose, and her fine black eyelashes framed beautiful dark chocolatey-brown eyes full of depth and warmth. Just like her father's. Petite in build, unassuming, she had learned through experience how to own any room she walked into, her posture extraordinary.
"Caroline, I'd like you to meet Gyda."
Caroline turned wide eyes on Giulia, that characteristic look on her face, the deep breath before the plunge, the cogs whirring manically, biting her tongue, the bomb-blast look. She may not have heard Giulia say the name Gyda in everyday conversation, but she had become as close with Kol as Giulia was, and especially after a few of his more adventurous cocktails, he tended to tell stories. Caroline turned to Giulia, communicating with her eyes what politeness and good breeding prevented her from exploding aloud.
Gyda. The Gyda, the Gyda that Kol told stories about. Gyda, an Original. In the company of the best groundskeeper ever employed at the Boarding House, who was 'so incredibly sweet and patient' with the little kids visiting the Edible Schoolyard, and on whom Caroline and Rose playfully admitted to being 'totalling crushing'.
"Hello, Caroline," Gyda beamed, in her crisp accent, which brought home a lot of memories for Giulia, of living and studying in London, taking 'city breaks' to various European cities every other weekend, ostensibly to do research for her degrees, but also because the opportunity was there, and she wasn't a fool not to take it. "Giulia and Zita have told us so much about you."
"It's nice to meet you," Caroline said, smiling politely.
"What do you think to my haircut? I think it's marvellous; Isak says he doesn't like it." She pulled a face as she knelt to give the mini-dachshunds a vigorous pat, give Zeus a full-body hug and scratch his ears the way he liked.
"It's not Isak's hair!" Zita chirped, her little face crinkling into a frown, and Gyda grinned, chuckling. Having been daggered in the Eighties by her uncle, Klaus, Gyda's first act to assimilate into modern life was to get a haircut. She had shorn her hair into a stunning pixie-cut; she was obsessed with and had taken on Emma Watson as her role-model and inspiration for her 'rehabilitation' into modern life, deeply impressed with the child-actress' career progression to university graduate, outspoken feminist, socio-environmentally-conscious, conscientious fashion-icon and U.N. spokeswoman. Gyda said Watson reminded her of Shirley Temple, another child-star with an extraordinary adult life.
"That's exactly what I told him," Gyda smiled, leaning away from Gallant as he tried to lick her face.
"I think the pixie-cut really suits you," Caroline said, gazing at the more petite Gyda, who looked no older than sixteen.
"Thank you!"
"Where's Isak? Is he still pouting?" Giulia asked, in medieval Italian, in an effort to keep Finn part of the conversation, aware that he did struggle to keep up. Amongst themselves, Giulia knew the family spoke a dialect of Old Norse evolved with words and phrases adopted from the language of the Native Americans who had once been their neighbours: it was now, after a millennium, their only common ground.
"Yes," a new voice answered in Italian, a rich tenor, and a tall figure appeared in her peripheral vision, this one golden-blonde rather than glossy chestnut-brunette like Gyda and Finn. Sapphire eyes twinkled irreverently, and Giulia was reminded so vividly of Damon that she almost winced, "But now I see you've brought treats."
Giulia scoffed delicately, glancing over at Isak, whose eyes were soaking up every inch of Caroline they could. Of her best-friend, Giulia told him in Italian; "She would eat you alive… Caroline, this Isak."
Isak was breathtakingly handsome, that traffic-stopping, plaster-his-face-on-billboards, can't-believe-he's-not-airbrushed handsome, with intense blue eyes, high cheekbones, a straight nose and pretty lips usually puckered in a scowl of distrust at Giulia, or smirking irreverently at his brother and sister, clean-shaven, his sun-streaked blonde hair recently trimmed to tickle his shirt-collars and fall seductively into his eyes. Of all of the Originals she had woken, Giulia had discovered Isak to be the most abrasive, and that was even including Kol, more likely to push back against the boundaries she had set for their rehabilitation, after discovering she couldn't be seduced, persuaded or compelled into doing what he wanted - though it had been amusing for her to let him try. Finn didn't quite know what to make of being awake, of being alive again, and learning that he had been woken after after nine centuries. The world was unrecognisable. It wasn't Gyda's nature to be vengeful; and finding her brother Finn alive for the first time in centuries had gentled some of the gorgeous Lagertha's more aggressive reactions. But Isak… Giulia's ancestresses Veronica and Carafina Salvatore had been turned personally by Isak; they had lived in Rome under the Borgia Pope during the 1490s in a ménage-a-trois, until Klaus had tracked Isak down and daggered him, leaving the two sisters bereft of their lover for five centuries.
Giulia hoped he would be different with them than he had acted toward her; but, like every one of the Originals she had woken, Isak had first seen her and hissed "Lucrezia!" in a mixture of amazement and horror, guilt flashing across his face before bravado had overwhelmed those extraordinary features. Every single one of the others had seemed either confused or delighted by her resemblance to Elijah's legendary and long-lost lover, a Countess of Provence at the beginning of the 1000s A.D. Willem had confirmed the resemblance was eerie but not identical; it was the eyes, he had told her, the cheekbones. Lucrezia as he remembered her had been older than Giulia was, now flirting closely with thirty. Willem had also confirmed that Isak had always been…amorous; he had fathered children before being created a vampire, and Giulia's friend Ashlyn was the product of that bloodline.
"Delicious," Isak sighed reverently, in English, sighing at Caroline. Her best-friend was glorious; she had recently had her hair done, a subtle, glimmering pale-champagne balayage, and her makeup was very pretty today. Caroline had taken special classes around her college degree to learn how to make herself look older than the seventeen years old she had been frozen at. No matter what age Caroline might have been frozen at, she would always have been stunning. The clothes she wore, the way she acted, how she held herself, people tended to overlook that Caroline still resembled a teenager; her height was also an advantage. Standing near petite Gyda, Caroline did look as if she was more than just a single year physiologically older than the thousand-year-old Gyda.
"Continue staring at my best-friend as if she's a prize cut of meat, you'll spend the day re-growing your eyeballs," Giulia warned him lightly. Isak rolled his eyes, but sniffed and glanced away, toward Zita whispering and giggling away in confidence with Finn, cuddling up in his strong arms. "Where's Lagertha?"
"She just got back from the caves, again," Gyda sighed, then shot a smug look at Isak, who simmered, glaring back. He shot Giulia a filthy look: Isak had been house-bound by a combination of the witches' power and Giulia's safety protocols for nearly a fortnight, after his last exhibition. Any den of iniquity to be found in a sixty-mile radius, apparently Isak had a natural homing-beacon for: and he had learned quickly where Giulia's protections ended, and the limits to her tolerance. It was Finn, the one Giulia had worried would struggle to adjust to modern life, who had fought so hard to help her rein Isak's behaviour in: they could not risk discovery - they couldn't risk that Klaus might hear rumours they were awake. As Klaus had no reason not to believe they weren't all still safely tucked up in the coffins in his keeping, it was Lagertha who had finally beaten it into Isak that it was to their benefit to remain hidden in Mystic Falls while they learned about the evolved world they had been reintroduced to.
"She went to the caves again?" Giulia sighed, frowning softly, worrying her lip. As she had with Elijah ten years ago, Giulia had taken each of his family-members down to the caves in which their Native neighbours had documented their family-history. The early settlement of the Vikings, the peace, and then the war between Viking settlers and Native werewolves, triggered by the death of a young Viking boy the night of a full-moon. Death, destruction, plagues, war. The creation of vampires by a powerful witch. The murder of that witch, their mother, Gyda's grandmother, Esther. Every one of them had reacted differently to realising Klaus had lied to them for a thousand years - that he had murdered their mother in cold blood, lied to them and told them it was Mikael, their father, so they would stand by his side and protect him, from the husband of a murdered wife seeking justice.
Finn had known. He had been very quiet when Giulia showed him the cave-paintings - he was quiet anyway, but that afternoon… He had wept, in the darkness of the caves, his palm resting against the graffiti carved into the cave-walls by Elijah's sons a millennium ago. He had told Giulia that he had foolishly confronted Klaus, alone, after hearing a whisper; fearful of being abandoned because of the horrifying truth he kept to himself, justifying his actions with the spell Esther had used to subdue his werewolf traits, Klaus had daggered Finn. And he had never thought twice about leaving him there.
But Lagertha… Lagertha had once been a bereft mother, before that, a shield-maiden, fighting in the shield-wall alongside her father and brothers in the Old Country during spring raids; it was Lagertha's battered shield Gyda had picked up to defend herself and Rebekah when Lagertha had finally fallen, broken by Mikael the night he and Esther created their surviving children into vampires. A desperate act to stop the war with werewolves started when their youngest brother, Henrik, had snuck out of the jarlshall the night of the full-moon to chase down and drag back Klaus, who had slipped out of the safety of the jarlshall in spite of his father's laws, to bed a slave-girl he liked to fuck and whom Finn had truly loved, in his quiet, stoic way. Every day since Giulia had woken her, Lagertha walked to the caves. The dynamics between the Original siblings was convoluted and dysfunctional at best; she knew Lagertha was reconciling that she had protected her mother's murderer, and been punished for her loyalty and ferocity against their enemies with a silver-dagger to her heart.
Lagertha was not the personality to forgive injustice, she was fierce and true-hearted, courageous and wise, martial, a feminist, at times gentle and seductive, sweet, and the last person one would expect to be touched by sentimental acts, like Finn bringing fresh flowers home, or cuddling and giggling with a four-year-old in the garden, braiding tiny flowers into Zita's riotous curls.
She would not forgive the wrongs inflicted on her family: in her mind, Niklaus was the ruination of their family, their home, and claiming to be the only victim.
And Giulia was forcing her to wait to strike back. To think, about how she truly felt about this revelation. What it meant to her, to her dynamic with different siblings. What she was going to do next.
It was Isak whose reaction Giulia was still uncertain of. He was irreverent, lusty, arrogant and charming as a form of self-preservation, keeping everything at bay, so like Damon it was no wonder she didn't get along with him; but the real stuff, finding out his monstrous, abusive half-brother had murdered his mother… It was the first time Giulia had seen Isak solemn, thoughtful, letting his guard down, letting something in. She had left him to react in private, having too much experience with Damon not to recognise he was skating the razor's edge of a potentially violent meltdown - and she had no intention of being caught up in it, knew he would loathe her for being witness to it. Men like Isak needed to be assured of utter privacy before they would allow themselves to break: No-one ever saw the struggle to put themselves back together, but it often took longer and was more painful than others.
"Don't worry; I'm keeping her distracted with Netflix," Gyda smiled, drawing Giulia's attention away from Isak. "We've been - what do you call it - 'marathoning' Supernatural."
"Oh, dear. Really?" Giulia asked, chuckling.
"It's that or watch the news - and it's making me…angry. I've heard this vitriol before. What - what happened, Giulia?"
"Bowie died," Giulia said gloomily, and Gyda's head drooped sorrowfully. "I don't want to say he was the glue holding the fabric of the universe together, however…" She waved her hand enigmatically.
"It's…it's making me…wrathful. Isak keeps fighting me for the remote-control, saying I'm getting too worked up… I've - I've seen this before… I've heard this vitriol and ignorant rhetoric before. Everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was legal, too," Gyda said, impassioned, and Giulia could tell she was getting worked up. Giulia didn't blame her. Giulia recognised the dark irony in a vampire showing more humanity than the human-beings who continued to excuse child-massacres by touting their coveted Second Amendment to protect their business-interests - an Amendment taken completely out of context for its original purpose, an Amendment to a document that compromised that slaves and freed African-Americans should be counted as three-fifths of a person for taxation and State representation purposes, allowing slaveholder interests to dominate the government of the United States until 1861 - until the Fourteenth Amendment specifically repealed the compromise. Sadly, it had taken a gruelling Civil War, the assassination of a President and the threat of no representation in Congress for the Confederacy to ratify the Amendment.
Giulia dreaded what had to happen before they achieved a much-desired resolution to the shocking escalation in the number of school shootings since the New Year alone because there was so little restriction to obtaining firearms.
After the Grove Hill High School shooting last year, the local attitude toward gun-safety had shifted considerably.
Zita was going to start Kindergarten in September.
Giulia did not want her daughter to have to learn Active-Shooter Drills before she could even read. She should be playing hopscotch and trading stickers and lunch treats and having story-time and colouring, not dodging bullets.
"Jeff Daniels, playing Will McAvoy in the three-season-long TV show called The Newsroom. His first epic monologue, watch it. You're a politically aware, conscientious feminist who values human-life, supports women's choice, equal rights, reduced wage-gap, the eradication of toxic masculinity, and you've seen empires rise, nations turn on each other, and regimes be overthrown by popular revolt," Giulia said. "You're well-travelled and educated. Watch that monologue. It is extraordinary writing - extraordinary in its rarity. And incredibly poignant for what's happening now."
"I'm so sad I missed Obama's tenure," Gyda said, looking adorably downtrodden. "I was watching him on YouTube earlier; I could listen to him talk all day. So eloquent, so…mm, so thoughtful, and dignified… Did he really cut the annual Bush deficit by two-thirds?"
"No need to stop there: In six years, he also nearly tripled the stock-market; cut employment by half; brought gas-prices down to £2.75; ended two wars; cut the uninsured rate in half; he got Bin Laden after 9/11 - oh, and he and his family constitute the first scandal-free presidency in over thirty years!" Giulia said proudly. She had a week's worth of well-loved Obama t-shirts on rotation as pyjama tops. They kept her going. And also the idea of regression to the mean; it couldn't last. It never did. The Constitution had been written with men like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in mind.
"All that in spite of unprecedented Republican obstruction," Caroline spoke up proudly; she had been raised by lifelong Republicans, her mother a female Sheriff, and a father who had left his wife for another man, both of whom were deeply ashamed of their current President. Caroline had great love for Obama, too. Giulia, she believed fiercely in treating people like human-beings, whatever their gender-association, shape, size, colour, ethnicity, religion, political affiliation or level of education, genetic anomalies, physical disfigurements or favourite sports team: she judged people, instead, by the way they handled being caught in traffic, how they treated their children in public, their use of grammar and punctuation in emails, how they cared for their books, how they treated staff in cafés and hotels after a long wait, and their musical taste.
Giulia breathed hard through her nose, having to calm herself down. Trying to live well by herself, her daughter and the people she loved was the best she could do to fight the tsunami of ignorance that seemed poised to wash over her nation and destroy everything. She was raising Zita to be open-minded, unbiased, curious, confident in herself, to know her opinion did have meaning no matter how young she was, to have a strong sense of self-worth, to be educated and conscientious toward others. "But - watch Will McAvoy's speech. It really renewed my hope that there truly are people with such journalistic integrity out there, fighting to make a difference."
"I'll have a search for it on YouTube," Gyda said, her cheeks dimpling, happy that she could say that so casually. "For now - Lagertha's commandeered the television. She's become alarmingly emotionally invested in those Winchesters."
"Who hasn't?" Giulia said rhetorically, and Gyda smiled.
"Joshua would be delighted that they drive a '67 Impala," Gyda said quietly, almost as an afterthought; Gyda had been friends with the uncle Giulia had never met. He had disappeared years before she was born, under mysterious circumstances; Giulia had been trying to figure out what happened to him since she discovered a trunk full of his belongings in the attic ten years ago. "And the music, of course. Anyway, science-fiction and fantasy shows always explain what you need to know within every episode; Finn likes them," Gyda shrugged, smiling happily, her eyes twinkling as she smiled at her own long-lost uncle. Giulia pulled a thoughtful face. "And we've made a list of references to research; even I'm struggling with some… Is a Kardashian some sort of fungus? We'll circle back to that: You're not just here to share pastries and introduce a new friend, are you?" Giulia offered up the pink bakery box.
"I need to go upstairs," Giulia said quietly, and Gyda's dark eyes - so like her father's - widened, nodding slowly. A flicker of excitement warmed her cheeks, delight. Gyda's natural state was content, relaxed. Like her father, she was creative, an artist gifted with eternity to cultivate her skills, musical - she had spent hours playing the harp Giulia had brought to the house, rather than focus on satisfying her bloodlust. She had been waiting for today.
Giulia didn't miss the look Finn and Isak exchanged; sombre and full of meaning. They knew, because she was otherwise so immovable, that if she was here for this reason, something had definitely happened. Nothing had been able to provoke her to act before she was ready, not screaming themselves hoarse, not the threat of violence, not Gyda's tearful pleading. She hadn't seen her father in decades. Giulia remained immovable.
"How about some coffee? Finn, perhaps you'd like to take Zita out to the creek?" Giulia suggested, in English. Finn gazed at Giulia for a moment, then covertly glanced at Caroline, offering his huge, scarred paw to Zita, whose tiny, unblemished hand slipped into it automatically, guiding her to the back-door, through the white-picketed garden full of parterres overflowing with herbs and plants Finn tended to assiduously.
The enormous broad-shouldered vampire with freshly-shorn dark hair and the tiny little girl skipping beside him made an odd, sweet picture, and Giulia watched them disappear through the honeysuckle-draped arbour gate at the back of the yard into the wilderness of the creek.
Gyda disappeared with the dogs and the bakery-box, followed by Isak, who had already lost interest in any thought of pursuing Caroline. Giulia had discovered Isak to be by turns passionate and joyous, his deep laughter echoing through the house, or irreverent and cold, disdainful, agitated and restless. Compared to his constant and unflappable brother Elijah, and Finn's stoic calm, Isak's personality was a bit jarring; Giulia could see where he and Kol would have bonded as witches of unparalleled talent, and she believed they had both responded to the loss of their magic in similar ways; by pursuing new highs - whether it be in love, in lust, in adventure, in mystical drugs, in living vicariously through powerful witches they met along the way, even going so far as to share their bodies, so they could once again feel the thrill of magic coursing through their veins. Isak was the first to discover vampires could possess the bodies of immortals, according to Kol they had both spent a significant part of the 1300s A.D. in the Far East inhabiting one witch's body after another - before being forcibly expelled by a particularly vicious coven that had finally had enough.
Giulia was left in the immaculate foyer with Caroline, a breeze whispering in through the open front-door, sunlight glinting off the polished floor, the scent of peonies and Gyda's favourite English lavender and chamomile soap on the air, mingling with freshly-baked goodies and the Nicaraguan-blend coffee Isak had taken a liking to, Giulia's only concession to him being housebound. Any evidence of the Originals' early confusion had been repaired by the witches. This land was steeped in magic, and the spirits had a long memory; some of the ancient ones had a personal connection the once very-human Original family. They remembered human Finn, human Lagertha, and the young Gyda who had tried to keep her siblings alive after her mother died in childbirth. They remembered the awing witch Isak had once been.
"So…they're all…"
"Originals," Giulia murmured, glancing toward the noise of Isak using the new coffee-grinder in the spacious kitchen, listening to hear that Lagertha truly was watching Supernatural in the drawing-room, greeting her dogs familiarly - the song 'Heat of the Moment' kept starting and stopping; Giulia smiled - they were watching Mystery Spot - which meantthe Trickster. Zita was still laughing happily and chatting with her giant quiet friend Finn by the bubbling creek. "Finn and Isak are Elijah's younger brothers. Their sister Lagertha is somewhere around here. Fair warning; she's intense. Gyda is Elijah's daughter… Come on…" She gestured for Caroline to follow.
"Where are we going?" Caroline asked. Giulia didn't answer, just indicated she follow, and led the way up through the airy, beautiful plantation house, up to the door to the attic. There was evidence, previously hidden from Caroline's view by the witches, that people did in fact live here. Each of them had their own bedroom, with Gyda's full of clothes, shoes, books, art-supplies, cosmetics she loved to play with; Finn's showed a neat stack of brightly-coloured children's books Gyda was teaching him English by, and which he painstakingly read to Zita whenever they visited; Lagertha's room was immaculate, as she spent so much time wandering the woods and waterfalls around Mystic Falls, the land of her youth, the land where she had lost her own children, curious about the training-equipment in gyms, watching the games at the Sports Park, at the high-school, curious about and delighted by the busload of female Marines travelling through town to the base closest to Mystic Falls. The only thing that pinned her down at the house was footage of the Olympics; she was awed by the Invictus Games; loved NFL Classics games on repeat and Lagertha enjoyed action movies, which she watched with Isak; Finn was awed by anything David Attenborough, a big hero to Giulia since living in London working on her Architecture degree and discovering that his voice soothed her out of any self-induced hysteria. Isak's room was littered with mementos from his outings; books, ladies' lingerie and liquor bottles.
They were all pretty big drinkers, though Lagertha despised the low-alcohol-content American chilled lager she called 'tasteless swill'; Giulia had looked into craft beer, and Finn had started making his own honey mead like in the old days, after introducing beekeeping to the Edible Schoolyard. One cup of Finn's honey-mead knocked Giulia on her ass; she didn't drink like she used to…
At the door to the attic, Giulia sighed, rested her hand on the doorknob, and waited for the pressure to give. Caroline shivered behind her, as they felt something release, almost like the house was sighing.
It cost the spirits to use their energy to keep things safe here.
The attic had new Velux windows, the only modern amendment to the renovation, and sunlight filtered through the clear glass windows into the empty attic, shards of golden light piercing through the eaves, picking up the dust disturbed by their entrance. The floorboards creaked, and the expansive room looked empty.
"Okay…" Caroline shot her a bemused look. "I know it's a great space, but…"
"Look again," Giulia said softly, and Caroline frowned, sighed, and glanced back down the length of the room. She blinked in surprise, and Giulia dawdled forward, drawn as she always was when she came up here, to the man in the crisp suit. Ermengildo Zegna. Expensive. Timeless. There was a dull glimmer to his sun-streaked dark-chestnut hair, and in sleep he looked serious and almost pained – an echo of the expression on his face when he was stabbed, she sometimes thought, his skin deadened, greyish, delicate-looking and stretched over dark, empty veins.
Elijah.
It hurt.
Despite the extraordinary life Giulia had built for herself, looking at him still hurt.
She had never once allowed herself to give in to the temptation of removing that dagger from his heart. No matter how much it hurt hers. Not for years. Until, guiltily, reasonably, she had realised that she had stopped missing him; her life was simply too full and too extraordinary to dwell on it. And now, years later, she had resisted waking Elijah until the last minute…because she was reluctant to face the ramifications of him waking, and realising she was alive, and altered, and had grown, and was a mother and the architect of his family's fate and his brother's greatest punishment.
She leaned down, tenderly tucking a lock of his dark hair away from his face. Her fingertips brushed his cheek, and her heart ached painfully as she stroked her thumb over his cheekbone, his eyebrow, over his cold lips.
Caroline's lips parted, as realisation hit home, and she turned wide blue eyes on Giulia for explanation. Her eyes wide, she breathed, "What did you do?"
Giulia swallowed, and she sighed softly; "I stole them."
A.N.: I know. A long'n, and a good'n. I know you'll all be pretty annoyed that I've changed the beginning again…I just didn't like what I'd written and couldn't get back into it. So, please accept my apologies, and also my first update in ages. For Originals family face-claims, please see my profile!